Saturday, November 06, 2010

True Church Stories #2

I wouldn't win any "pastor of the year" awards for this one but it's one of my fondest memories of poetic justice.

A lady who was a member of our church in Maryland called me demanding that meals be brought to her home because she was unable to get out of bed. She had been in a fender bender car accident and claimed that she could barely move. She said, "Pastor Deanna, right now I can't even stand up! I don't know when I might be able to get out of bed again." Right at that moment I didn't have someone who could run a meal over nor could I do it myself but I said I would work on it as best I could and get back to her. She wasn't happy that I wasn't rushing right over to her house or having someone else do it, so she basically went on this long rant, telling me how displeased she was with my answer, how I was not meeting her expectations, and how unhappy she was with our church. "The church needs to be doing more...you need to do this...you need to do that..." she ranted into the phone. I took her verbal beating without defense, then hung up and proceeded to go about trying to find someone to take her some meals or find time to do it myself admist the 3,759 other things I was already doing in the church.

About an hour later -- yes, only ONE hour later on the same day, I went to the grocery store and as I rounded the aisle to the dairy section, right between the cheese and the butter, who did I see but THIS LADY!!!! She was walking around, doing her shopping, smiling and moving around just fine. She was even all dressed up in a smart looking pantsuit, make up fully on, hair done up. Wow!!! So much for the "Pastor Deanna, right now I can't even stand up..." She never expected to see me in the store, that was for sure.

So I did what any good pastor would do. I rejoiced with her in her healing! I immediately ran over to her and started jumping up and down shouting, "YOU'VE BEEN HEALED! YOU'VE BEEN HEALED!!! OH THANK YOU JESUS! HALLELUIAH! PRAISE YOUR NAME, JESUS! GLORY!!! THANK YOU LORD FOR THIS MIRACLE!!!!"

You can imagine the look on her face.

I know, they would never teach you to do this in Bible College. But I couldn't help myself. So much for the fruit of self control...lol